BUFFON FULLER QUOTATIONS. 165 



and by analogies almost as difficult to lay hold of as is 

 the time which has effaced the greater number of their 

 traces, I shall, nevertheless, endeavour to ascend to 

 these first ages of Nature by the aid of facts and monu- 

 ments which yet remain to us, and to represent the 

 epochs which these facts seem to indicate." * 



The fifteenth volume contains a description of a few 

 more monkeys, as also of some animals which Buffon 

 had never actually seen, a great part being devoted to 

 indices. 



Supplement. 



The first four volumes of the Supplement to Buflbn's 

 ' Natural History,' 1774-1789, contain little which 

 throws additional light upon his opinions concerning 

 the mutability of species. At the beginning, however, 

 of the fifth volume I find the following : 



" On comparing these ancient records of the first 

 ages of life [fossils] with the productions of to-day, we 

 see with sufficient clearness that the essential form has 

 been preserved without alteration in its principal parts : 

 there has been no change whatever in the general type 

 of each species ; the plan of the inner parts has been 

 preserved without variation. However long a time we 

 may imagine for the succession of ages, whatever num- 

 ber of generations we may suppose, the individuals of 

 to-day present to us in each genus the same forms as 

 they did in the earliest ages ; and this is more especially 

 true of the greater species, whose characters are more 

 invariable and nature more fixed ; for the inferior species 



* Tom. xiv. p. 374, 1766. 



